A model for strategic control in insurance companies in Iranian insurance industry

Strategic control, aimed at aligning an organization's strategy with environmental changes and disruptions, can have its own specific pattern in any industry, considering that the organizational environment varies across different industries. In recent years, due to internal and international reasons, environmental disruptions for industries in Iran have increased. Therefore, the topic of strategic control has gained special importance. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to propose a model for strategic control, particularly for the insurance industry in Iran, considering various models of strategic control and the diverse indicators it may have.

This research is fundamental-applied in terms of purpose, exploratory-directed, and a combinatory (qualitative and quantitative) study. The qualitative section of the research is based on a data-oriented research strategy, and the quantitative section employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is among the multi-criteria decision-making methods. The statistical population of this study consists of senior managers of Iranian insurance companies who have a role or experience in the process of formulating, implementing, and controlling the strategic plans of insurance companies. The sampling method was a theoretical and snowball sampling.

Based on the data obtained from the interviews, the concepts were categorized into two main groups: strategy execution control and strategy content control. In the content control section, three concepts were identified as controlling vital success factors, controlling fundamental assumptions, and scenario-based control. In the execution control section, two concepts were identified as post-action control and operational control. In total, 15 types of control need to be implemented across these five sections, which were evaluated quantitatively in this research. In the quantitative section, competitive control, controlling fundamental market assumptions, and controlling fundamental assumptions of the macro environment received the highest scores.

Regarding the findings of the research, categorizing the types of strategic controls and scoring them does not mean that some control methods are superior to other methods, and based on the type of strategic approach in any company, each of the controls may be used in different ways and have varying degrees of importance. Also, because of the availability of advanced information technology tools and the insurance industry enjoying plenty of data, it is suggested that insurance companies use these tools more frequently in their strategic control process. Considering the importance of futurology methods including scenario planning in businesses, it is suggested that the insurance industry teach them to its managers and specialists so that by using them, unpredicted incidents will be reduced, and they will be fully ready to face different situations. Finally, in the quantitative evaluation of the research, the control of internal processes and human resources received the lowest points, despite their importance, it is necessary to control them more strongly to strengthen them.